I am fine with the programming aspect of the projects. The part that I need help with is the testing and helping to narrow down a feature set. The Sim tracker covers a lot of the basics of recording activities. I was planning on including details about every Skill/Feature. Basically it would contain all the tables that you would find in the Sims Wiki. For example cooking, it will have all the skill levels and recipes unlocked by skill or by recipe book at every level. It will have all the ingredients and where you can purchase them. It will also track which recipes you have learned and what ingredients are requires. Whether they are caught (fishing) or grown (gardening). I also wanted to track progress toward each challenge by keeping track of which recipes your sim made and the result. I also wanted to include support for nraas mods such as the "no purchase ingredients from refrigerator" mod. This tracker would allow you to create a meal plan so when you go to the store or another country you know what you need to buy. This is the level of detail I am looking to include for all skills/traits.

From a player character side I am looking to create a customizable trackable events. Such as first kiss, first woohoo and who they were with. I would like to keep track of woohoo conquests which would help track status of various challenges or LTW's. It will allow you to keep track of all the sims that you meet and be a be able to quickly view age, traits, careers progression. You will be able to see if they are scheduled to be at work and such.

I also play with a heavily modded game such as nraas "relativity" and "story progression" which adds a lot of variability. These are the kinds of ideas I am looking for help with at the moment. I am also looking to see if anyone would be interested in this kind of tracking or if they think it is overkill.

It sounds like a hell of a lot to be tracking, but then the more it tracks, the more people can get a use of out it. Me personally, what I track depends entirely on how I'm playing. Take my Sims 2 game for example. In a random "normal" neighborhood, one where I'm not playing a challenge, self-imposed or official, I'm not likely to track much at all. In my Test of Time challenge, I use RebaLynn's SimTracker to keep track of who is in what household and how sims are related and a spreadsheet to track challenge specific data, and a notebook to track daily events. In my ISBI challenge, I track most everything to do with my heirs, but not really with the spares. And in my Prosperity challenge, I track everything, down to the tiniest detail.

And if you can make the stuff you don't want to track for that particular neighborhood not visible, that makes it even better a program to use. So in my opinion, the more it can track, the more mods its compatible to track with, especially NRass mods since they're so popular, the better a tracking program it will be. ~VP

I'll stop being anti-social when the rest of the world quits being idiots!

I was thinking about what you said and the amount of time it would take to include all of the raw tables for the lookup data. What I will do in the initial release is setup basic tracking like the Sim Tracker. I will include basic information regarding traits, LTW, Skills and some other information for tracking. For detailed info I will include a reference to the detailed sim wiki page with all the detailed information. That way the application focuses on tracking and not replicating the sims wiki. As for tracking, I am going to include the fields for basic tracking for the main demographic information. From there you will be able to define your own custom attributes you want to track and the categories and value types. If enough people ask for certain features to be included as a primary information field then I will add that to the main fields area.

My brain is pretty scrambled from work right now, so I'm not processing sentences as well I'd like, but what I could decipher sounds pretty good. Basic tracking to start with, and the ability to customize, even a small amount, sounds like the best idea for an initial release. Plus nothing says every planned feature has to be available from the very beginning. If you can get a group to agree to be ongoing beta testers, you can have that group test out the new features as you work them in, then add them to the finalized version as that group provides you with feedback. ~VP

I'll stop being anti-social when the rest of the world quits being idiots!

My final question is the target platform. I originally intended this to be a Desktop application written in WPF targeting the .net framework. I was considering making it an Android application that could run on a Tablet or Mobile Device. I might include iPhone or iPad as a later release. I personally prefer the desktop because I have 3 32" monitors and I have the screen space but I know some who have a single monitor. Also with the desktop app you would need to run the sims in windowed mode. Right now I am planning on proceeding with the WIndows version unless someone really thinks the mobile platform is the way to go. I would even consider doing it as a Single Page web application using AngularJS but I would need somewhere to host it.

I vote with the windows application. I personally play in windowed mode anyway, because my computer is a butt and displays weird in full screen, and because I use trackers and whatnot. My old computer could hook up a second monitor and that was where my trackers and whatnot sat, so I know how you feel about having the screen space. The problem I'd have with doing it as an app is that I would hate to use it because the only thing I have to run apps of any sort is my phone, and while the LG G3 has a decent sized screen, trying to input and read all the things needed for tracking sims stuff would be a right pain in the butt. Maybe at a later time you could look into releasing an Android/iPhone app, but I'd focus on doing the initial release as a windows desktop application. Some of us simmers are dirt poor and can't afford the tablets that would most likely be necessary to use a tracker. ~VP

I'll stop being anti-social when the rest of the world quits being idiots!

If anyone wants any specific features or features that were in the Sim Track in this new tracker please post the requests here. I would like to know what you want in the application. While I don't have Sims 2 I would be willing to create an updated tracker for this Sims 2 if that is what people want. The two trackers would share a common library so I would only have to do the UI. RebaLynnTS made the data files in a consumable format. It is a shame she hasn't been on in a while. I would have liked to have worked with her on this.

I was doing a bit of poking, wondering why Reba hadn't been on, and from her facebook and twitter accounts, it appears she passed just before Christmas last year. We might be able to contact her husband for her source code, but it really sucks that she can't join in on this. I bet she'd have been a huge help getting things set up. ~VP

I'll stop being anti-social when the rest of the world quits being idiots!

I read that she was sick but didn't know she passed. She will be missed. I will include her name in the application crediting her with the original idea and original tracker. That way she will be remembered.

I have read through some of the older posts on this forum and I will continue to make the data sources available. I liked that she kept all the data files as plain text so people could edit them. I was originally going to use SQLite as the database but I will use XML data store so you can modify the core data elements for any mods you have.

I really want this to be a community project. Initially I will be targeting Sims 3 but will be looking to create a Sims 2 and Sims 4 version if there is enough interest.

Ok. I have extracted all of the raw data sources I need to be able to create the application. There are too many elements to post here but I will post screen shots of the application progress and I am building it. I will be looking for beta testers to test the application and help validate some of the lookup data and calculations.

I was beta testing for RebaLynn on SimTracker 2. She had told me she was sick, so I kind of put it on a back burner until I heard from her again. Then I thought that maybe she just lost interest. I am sad to realize that she passed on. I would be willing to beta test for this new project. While I do own the Sims 3, I don't really play it. I still use the beta version of SimTracker 2 for my gameplay of Sims 2. It does have quite a bit of bugs, but it is still the best thing out there so I just deal with them. If there could be a version that is bug free (or at least less buggy), I would be very willing to beta test to make it possible to use.

Sorry for reviving old threads, but I need some help with an error I kept on getting on SimTracker. Whenever I try to add new custom careers into the list, they would overwrite one another. It's a pain because I play with so much custom careers and I want to track everything in one program instead of two. Could anyone help me?

Is anyone still working on this? It looked like some people took over after the original creator passed away. The program is wonderful, except for a few odd glitches. Like the duplicate sim problem I've been having lately. I'd also like to offer myself up as a beta tester if it is still an active project.